A Different Way
by Rowena of Naxen
Summary: Warning: Spoilers for Mockingjay!  How things could have been. It's just a different way. Epilogue rewrite. / Written for Starvation's September challenge, prompt: epilogue rewrite.


**Warning: this is a rewrite of the epilogue of Mockingjay. As such it contains spoilers for the book. (I know, you're shocked.) So if you somehow haven't finished reading MJ yet, don't read this! You've been spoiler alerted!**

**Disclaimer: Am I Suzanne Collins? No. You know how I know why? If I were her, the epilogue would have been like this.**

**So this was written for Starvation's September challenge. The prompt was "epilogue rewrite," so here is my version. I'm attempting Katniss POV the way it is in the books...I don't know if I succeeded or not, but that's why it's present tense and somewhat bland :P  
**

In five years we visit Annie. She always keeps her son close to her. He looks a lot like Finnick, and he keeps her calm like Finnick used to, only he's not trying as hard as his father did. After all, he is only four.

Peeta asks if he may hold him, and Annie says yes with that brilliant smile that makes a person understand why her husband loved her so much. The little boy makes her happy. It is almost enough – _almost_ – to make me see why a person would want to have children.

While holding him, Peeta meets my eyes with that hopeful look, the one that sees our future laid out before us the way he wants it to be. We are married now, so children are the logical next step, and Peeta wants children – badly. I tell him I want to wait but I am not certain I will ever be ready. I know the Games are over, and I want to make him happy – it seems that to be in love means you only want the person you love to be happy – but I have spent so long sure that I would never have children that I don't think I can reverse my thinking.

Peeta asks about the others and Annie relays the news she has heard. More people visit her, contact her, to hear about her child. And, I suppose, to make sure she is alright, mentally, after Finnick's death. The only piece of information that surprises me is that Johanna lives in Two now.

"With Gale?" I ask. It's out of my mouth before I can stop it, and now I regret saying it, not because Peeta will be angry – he is never jealous, now – but because saying Gale's name brings back the memory of Prim's body going up like tinder and our awful goodbye.

Annie speaks carefully, thinking out her words before she says them. "I heard they lived near each other, yes, and Johanna has said they spend time together – although she also said that he is such a pain she couldn't even spend a whole day with him. She's softened a little, but not much, I have heard."

This seems to be her quota of information for the day, because she is very quiet for the rest of the time we are there. We leave early, on the train back to Twelve. District Four is beautiful, and Annie's house has the most marvelous view of the sea, but Twelve is home.

* * *

There is a ten year "reunion." I say it is a horrible thing, to have a reunion of the last Games – why remember them, really, when it only causes hurt? – but Peeta says it brings up morale to see how far we have come.

It is not just a reunion of the last Games, but the whole rebellion, to honor everyone who fought – those who are still with us and those who are not. Peeta and I both know why I don't want to go: Gale will be there.

We haven't spoken since he walked out of the room, out of my life, before I shot Coin. It is easy to blame him for his behavior, but looking back I can see that the way I acted was unkind. It is possible to repair a friendship after a romance or a death, so it could not be impossible to repair one after both. Surely Gale would have been willing to try if I was.

Peeta and I travel to the Capitol, and I am nervous despite knowing that it will be very different than the last Capitol party I attended. Our engagement party. Now, the Capitol is not so different from the Districts, except that it is the seat of the government.

When we arrive Peeta, always the gentleman, goes to put our coats away and I make awkward conversation with a few people I vaguely remember, all of whom are tactful enough not to mention my breakdown and subsequent disappearance after the symbolic last shot.

When he returns Peeta looks shocked, staring at me disbelievingly with wide eyes and I can't imagine what would be wrong until he turns me to face the direction from which he had come. There are two people leaving the coat closet – two people I don't recognize until Peeta squeezes my arm and I really focus. One is a man, with dark hair and a short dark beard and the other is a woman, her chestnut hair streaked with a little gray –

I gasp. It is Gale, and Johanna. Gale and Johanna. He has matured and her hair is mussed, covering her face, and he leans in close to kiss her cheek.

I whirl to face Peeta. Not just Gale and Johanna, Gale _with_ Johanna!

Apparently, there are disadvantages to leaving the television off most of the time, although they say it isn't public (yet) and swear us to secrecy, which we agree to.

Whatever they did to her in the Capitol aged Johanna, but no fresh romance could rid her of that sharp tongue.

Gale looks so different from the friend I had – it takes me half the party to realize I have never seen him so happy and unencumbered. He does not have to worry about food or war. He never used to seem carefree, and I can't see the boy I used to know at all.

* * *

When Gale appears on the television while we're cleaning up after dinner, I don't turn it off, which seems like a fine idea until his mouth starts announcing that Penny Hawthorne and her mother are both doing very well, in fact they were healthy enough to come in to the studio today. And then Johanna is on the screen too, cradling a tiny creature in her arms, and even though the baby's hair hasn't grown in yet when the camera zooms in on her face I can see her eyes are gray.

Wordlessly Peeta shuts off the television. Children have become something of a sore point around our house. We are thirty now. I know Peeta would've liked to have a family by now, but I still can't get past the choking fear at the thought of a child being taken from me, no matter how small the chance such a thing will happen.

He stands and wraps his arms around me, and I snuggle in to his arms. Peeta is my safe haven, the only one I know can make the nightmares go away, and I love him so much.

I want to give him everything.

"Katniss, aren't you ready yet?" he whispers.

But I can't give him this.

I shake my head and he kisses my hair, holding me tighter. He will never push me. He may never even ask why not.

* * *

We decline the invitation to Annie's son's wedding but send our congratulations and a gift. Twenty may be young to be married but he is very mature for his age. Neither Peeta nor I really considered going. There are a million reasons why we didn't want to go, but unspoken, the primary one is that Gale and Johanna's daughter is the flower girl.

Peeta has not even said the word 'children' since six months ago when he asked me if I would ever be ready and I lost my temper and screamed at him to stop forcing me in to something I didn't want to do.

I know it was wrong, and cruel, and we've moved on, but seeing Penny, seeing how her parents have moved on from the horror of the rebellion, would be too much.

I think Peeta knows now that we will never have children, even if he hasn't come to terms with it yet.

I do love him. Miraculously, he still loves me, as he has always loved me.

But he hates the life being with me has forced him in to.

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